How to Engage Students

Strategies for engaging students’ attention and active participation

• Ways to get attention• Ways to focus attention• Ways to keep attention• Ways to keep attention during seat

work.

Ways to get attention

• Seat students close to you for direct instruction• Model excitement• Generate discussion • Use mystery and playfulness• Establish a system of signaling cues:– Auditory cues– Visual signals– Routine phrases– Eye contact

Ways to focus attention• Incorporate presentations• Explain the purpose• Move around in the classroom• Project your voice• Teach thematically whenever possible• Incorporate visual techniques such as:

– Color– Positioning students– Writing key words or pictures– Illustrating– Pointing to written material– Using overhead projector– Blockingunwanted material

Ways to keep attention• Be well-prepared• Format lessons using a variety of questioning• Increase student responses

– Vary the way you call upon students– Use higher-level questioning techniques– Ask students to write their best guess first

• Utilize peer help such as the:– Pair-share format– Cooperative learning groups– Group or responses

• Provide materials such as:– Individual journals– Pre-made response cards– Response fan– Partial outlines– Computer programs

Ways to keep attention during seat work

• Give manageable amount of work • Check if students understand directions• Make sure supplies are available• Assign study buddies• Use private cues • Scan the class frequently• Provide examples for reference• Use behavior modification techniques

What happens when you try to engage students by floating a question during class? Silence? The same eager student anxious to answer? Most of the students not thinking about the question but just hoping that you won't call on them? What can we do to make students more actively engaged with the material during lecture in order to improve student learning?

Teaching Strategies

• The jigsaw technique• The gallery walk• Effective discussion• Concept sketches • Case studies• Debates• Just-in-time teaching• Role Playing

Dividing students into groups, allowing them to learn about the topic, re-dividing into mixed groups, allowing each member to discuss their topic.

The Jigsaw technique

The Gallery Walk

Devising several questions/problems at a different table or at a different place on the walls. Students form as many groups as there are questions, and each group moves from question to question.

• Discussion is an excellent way to engage students in thinking and analyzing or in defending one side of an issue, rather than listening to lecture. Students must also respond to one another, rather than interacting intellectually only with the instructor.

Effective Discussion

Sketches or diagrams that are concisely annotated with short statements that describe the processes, concepts, and interrelationships shown in the sketch.

Concept Sketches

Case Study: The presentation of students with a problem to solve that revolves around a story (the "case"). Good case studies give the students considerable latitude in deciding how to solve the problem.

Case StudiesDebates force students to deal with complexity and "gray areas.“They can also help provide relevancy of course material to everyday issues. Debates also improve student's oral communication skills.

Debates

Just-in-time teaching

Role-Playing

A way of engaging students in course material before class and preparing them to come to class and participate actively during class.

A well-constructed role-playing or simulation exercise can emphasize the real world and require students to become deeply involved in a topic.

As you enter a classroom ask yourself this question: "If

there were no students in the room, could I do what I am planning to do?" If your answer to the question is

yes, don't do it.

Gen. Ruben Cubero, Dean of The Faculty, United States Air Force Academy

Power to You!

GOOD LUCK TO YOU ALL!